It was a good year for De Beers Canada, as the diamond corporation celebrates improvements in production and financial performance.
While De Beers saw it’s revenue drop slightly from 2016 to 2017, going from just $6.1 billion to $5.8 billion, it would be coupled alongside a capital expenditure that dropped nearly 50% – $526 million in 2016 down to $273 million in 2017.
CEO of De Beers, Kim Truter, says a lot of the success of the year is in large part from great work being done Gaucho Kue mine in the Northwest Territories, as well as Victor mine in Northern Ontario. He says the success of both mines can be chalked up to an excellent job done at budgeting their expenses, leading to a record year.
“We had superb cost-management that generated just over $200 million USD in what we call EBITDA. That then equates to just over $260 million CAN, which is the best financial performance we’ve had.”
A company release from De Beers also credits the recent closure of the Snap Lake mine. Snap Lake had a recent auction in which lots of equipment and vehicles were sold off to vying companies from around the world. De Beers even donated equipment to local organizations.
Truter added that a focus on safety showcased the value of strong workers.
“When you benchmark out our De Beers Canada performance against other mining competitors in Canada, we have the lowest lost-time-injury frequency rates. We’re very proud of the culture and morale that we’ve been able to build, and all of the quality people we have here in Canada.”
Truter says they expect to have another strong year in 2018, one that could even surpass the success of 2017.
